Hair, Brushes and Art

George Romney, The Clavering Children (1777-8) Oil on canvas. Huntington Museum, San Marino, CA

In pointing out yesterday that George Romney’s The Clavering Children (above) is more about Romney and his art than his young sitters, I left out a few points. Hair and its resonance.

Hair resembles a paintbrush and is brushed and, like art, is styled. Both have hairlines which is the essence of drawing. Hair dries; paint too. One is lacquered, the other varnished, sprayed on with or without an airbrush. You can find hair-dos in almost all figurative art and they are worth close study.

The artist's own hairstyle in a self-portrait is the place to start. Facial fur is important as well because whiskers and stashes are also styled. Beards too which Hermann Melville called fly-brushes. For instance, once you know Romney’s hairstyle (above right), you will be able to recognize it on the heads of his painted figures. In The Clavering Children I identified the boy as “the artist” and the girl as “his painting within the painting” who, in turn, must be self-representational. And so she is (above left). Her bangs are a row of vertical lines like the hair lines in Romney’s youthful self-image which, being the sharpest lines, may suggest that they are also lines of drawing in his mind (above).1 Note too how the girl's nose and mouth resemble his.

For a third hirsute self-reference, take a look at the charming puppy the girl holds, designed again to resemble the same youthful self-portrait whose hair the girl references. Compare their noses and general wide-eyed expression. So study self-portraiture carefully because while an artist’s actual hairstyle might change, in art it lives on and can appear in the most unlikely of places.

1. The accuracy of the self-portrait is not certain because he looks much younger than his 31 years of age.